TikTok’s Latest Iced Coffee Trend Involves A Totally Unexpected Ingredient

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spring onion coffee – Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock

People do strange and fascinating things on the Internet, like washing their shredded cheese to remove anti-caking agents or making a million different trendy butter boards. And coffee is a recurrent topic of many TikTok trends. Remember dalgona coffee from South Korea? Now there’s a new TikTok iced coffee trend, and it’s rather polarizing as it involves a totally unexpected savory ingredient that’s probably in your pantry or garden. The ingredient is scallions, or green onions.

Yes, you read that correctly. Adding scallions or green onions to iced coffees or lattes is a recent trend originating from cafes across China, the same country that brought us the viral grilled ice cube trend. We’re beginning to see a pattern here of what makes food trendy and viral — its shock factor. Loading up ice coffee or lattes with a huge handful of chopped green onions makes for an interesting looking and highly Instagrammable drink; however, the flavor of this creation is also interesting, to put it kindly.

TikTok user Golden Brown Coffee recreated the viral drink and described it by saying, “I can’t even fake any redeeming qualities. That is horrific.” The thing we must understand, however, is that this viral iced coffee drink is part of a series of “dark cuisine dishes” coming from China. TikTok user louisliu86 points out that these dark cuisine dishes are meant to curb appetites and help people in China who are dieting to eat less.

Green Onions Are Commonly Found In Asian Desserts

green onion coffee – Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock

While half of the Internet has agreed that this coffee does not belong in our universe, there are more open-minded people who have tried the viral green onions iced coffee trend and found it intriguing. Some have remarked how the drink has energized them or that it’s quite nutritious. To us, this trend may seem unique and strange, but in Asia, scallions and green onions have found a place in not-too-sweet pastries, cakes, bread, and cookies. For instance, it’s easy to find scallion and pork floss studded chiffon cakes or pork lard and scallion cookies in Asian bakeries. In these cases, the green onions are only a small component of the baked goodies — little pops of jade here and there. In this viral iced coffee however, the star is the green onions, generously mashed into the bottom of the cup and crowning the drink.

In all honesty, while we’re intrigued, we might not take the plunge into making this viral iced coffee drink ourselves just yet. For now, we would prefer to reserve our stash of green onions at home for congee, miso soup, and stir-fries; maybe for a chiffon cake here and there. If we do add green onions to our coffee, however, we might just add a little splash of scallion oil, like how baristas add olive oil and butter to iced coffees and lattes, then garnish with a stalk of green onion to double as a stirrer.